


Closed Doors

by khal_blaine



Category: Glee
Genre: 50s!Klaine, Angst, Closeted Character, M/M, klaine AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5667712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khal_blaine/pseuds/khal_blaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A snapshot of Blaine and Kurt at Dalton Academy, 1954.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closed Doors

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [GleePromptMeme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/GleePromptMeme) collection. 



>   
> **Prompt:**  
>  I'd love to see Dalton!Klaine set in the 1950's, with all the angst and sneaking around that comes with that. I wanna leave this up for interpretation though!  
> 

It’s easy to hand jive with a girl. An elaborate pat-a-cake to the percussion. Blaine even enjoys himself, laughing when his dance partner—he thinks her name is Julie—slips up and loses her place. He grabs her wrists and directs her movements for the next few bars of music. Her arms are limp in his grip, weak with her own giggling that’s so strong it has her doubling over.

Blaine gestures his head toward the edge of the gymnasium, a smile still on his face. She nods, composing herself, and Blaine puts his hand between her shoulder blades to lead them off the dance floor. She adjusts her dress carefully and takes a seat while Blaine excuses himself to go grab some punch. When he returns and hands her a paper cup, she holds it up for a toast.

“To the most successful dance ever,” she jokes, eyes bright.

Blaine touches the rim of his cup to hers, revising, “To the best dance partner at Crawford Country Day.”

Having a sister school to Dalton Academy makes it easier to keep up appearances. They have at least one co-ed dance a semester, and even more events throughout the school year where the boys and girls of each academy cross paths. The spring science fair, theatre productions, debate competitions. These events allow Blaine to have enough stories about girls and “dates” to satisfy his parents when he visits home once a month. So far they haven’t batted an eye at his inability to grab onto a stable relationship at 17. He has high standards, they say, which is a good thing—appropriate for an Anderson boy, and where Cooper often messed up, courting any girl who’d give him the time of day when he attended Dalton.

“It’s perfectly fine to wait for the right one, son,” his father always tells him. “Patience pays off in the end.”

He’ll be talking about Julie at the dining table next week for sure. How they spent the night dancing and it was a lot of fun. It won’t even be a lie for once.

When the night comes to a close, Blaine walks Julie to her dorm. The two buses that will take him and his classmates back across town to Dalton are rumbling nearby in the parking lot. He’s not allowed inside the building itself, so he pauses on the bottom step beside her and they share a hug. She hands back his blazer that’s been tucked around her shoulders to keep the October chill at bay.

“I had a really great time tonight, Blaine,” she says. Her eyes are still doing that twinkling thing. It makes him feel unsettled.

“Me too. Maybe I’ll see you at the Christmas social?” He doesn’t actually intend on going, but he’s keeping up appearances.

“I’ll be there,” Julie replies.

There’s a pause. Blaine fiddles with the buttons on his blazer, folded over the crook of his elbow.

“Well, I—I better get going. Gotta catch the bus.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Julie.” He leans in and kisses her, feather light on the cheek. As soon as she’s inside Blaine’s off and jogging toward the buses, not even bothering to pull his blazer back on.

In the morning he finds Kurt in the dining hall, sitting beside him at a table with only a thin crowd of other boys, yawning into their scrambled eggs. Blaine robotically shovels oatmeal into his mouth, glancing over at Kurt periodically, but not too much. Never too much.

“You didn’t go to the dance?” he asks.

Kurt shakes his head. “You?”

“It was pretty fun. Cute girls.” He says it with a straight, honest face, because it’s true. He can see that they’re cute, even if he doesn’t think of them the same way Wes and David do.

“I’m glad you had a nice time.”

They go to their morning classes and reconvene for lunch, sitting with a group of The Warblers who are all rabidly discussing their dates from the night before. Blaine joins in on the conversation when appropriate, talking about Julie’s eyes. Her hair and her laugh.

“Oh yeah, man. I saw her!” Thad tells him, leaning in to excitedly murmur, “She looked good from behind, too, yeah? That dress fit perfectly.”

He blinks, managing to huff out a laugh at the lewd remark. “Oh. Right, yeah.”

When the final dismissal of the day comes at 3:45 in the afternoon, Blaine invites Kurt to his dorm to study for their Latin examination coming up next week. Blaine struggles with conjugation, and Kurt’s breezed through it—on top of his additional French elective—so it’s not a surprise to anyone to see them heading off to the housing block together with heavy Latin textbooks under their arms.

They’re always so careful. They have to be. Blaine just read a newspaper report _days_ ago about an ex-police officer arrested in Cleveland on sodomy charges with other consenting men, most of them teenagers like them. Kurt already gets the word “fairy” thrown at him in the hallway. No one takes the taunting any further since he’s the invaluable countertenor of the school’s show choir, but it’s enough to make them both scared.

Blaine checks the lock three times when he shuts the door behind them, turning the deadbolt, too. Before they do anything else, they set out their books, notebook paper, uncap their pens and set them on Blaine’s desk. If someone knocks on the door, they won’t have to scramble to set the scene.

“Okay,” Kurt breathes.

“Okay?” Blaine echoes.

Kurt nods, and Blaine pulls him into his arms for a tight hug. They don’t even get to do this out in the hallways; it just seems too dangerous. Why risk someone seeing it if they linger a bit too long, if their hands naturally settle a bit too low?

“Kiss me.”

Blaine isn’t sure who says it. Maybe they both do. They might as well have.

A small, desperate sound escapes Kurt’s mouth as he presses in close and catches Blaine’s lips.


End file.
